| Mar 2011 | Mar 2010 | Mar 2009 | Mar 2008 | Mar 2007 | |
| Debt Equity Ratio | 0.59 | 0.68 | 1.34 | 1.08 | 0.69 |
| Book Value | 503.19 | 418.94 | 331.68 | 298.78 | 240.78 |
| Earnings Per Share | 71.58 | 56.37 | 69.70 | 63.85 | 72.74 |
USD/INR up after Fitch warns of US rising debt, weak shrs
Dollar/rupee opened up Thursday on increased risk aversion after Fitch raised concerned about the rising debt in the US and also on fear that cheap loans from European Central Bank to euro zone banks was not enough to contain the debt crisis in Europe
Fitch Ratings on Wednesday warned again that the US' rising debt burden was not consistent with maintaining the country's top 'AAA' credit rating, but said there would likely be no decision on whether to cut the rating before 2013.
Adding to this was the month-end dollar demand from oil importers and year-end dollar remittance by overseas funds ahead of Christmas and New Year celebration
Investors also expected to see the continued easing trend of weekly food inflation due later today, which could help the central bank reverse its tight monetary policy stance.
Base Metals Likely To Remain Volatile Near-Term
Base metals are likely to remain volatile near term as investors are convinced that European policy makers are not capable of devising a satisfactory and sustainable solution to the region's sovereign debt crisis
Precious metals are trading mixed, with gold slipping in early Asian trade.Market remains choppy and in thin market conditions due to the Christmas holidays, it is no surprise.
The Reserve Bank of India reduced trading limits for banks in the foreign exchange market, making it difficult for market players to keep speculative positions open for a long time. While the measures should help reduce speculative volatility in the FX market, in long term as global funding strains remain, the rupee is likely to stay under pressure.
RBI announced several regulatory measures in response to the severe weakness in the rupee in the last few days:
1. Forward contracts which have been booked by customer earlier cannot be cancelled and rebooked.
Impact: They will bring down trading by local customers. Obviously market liquidity will suffer. RBI seems to be targeting a lot of local customers who have long USD positions (from a trading perspective) and hopes to bring down USD/INR by forcing these clients to sell.
2. Forward contracts booked by clients on past performance have been reduced to 25% of the average of last 3 years export/import turnover from 75% earlier
Impact: Again, to reduce trading in USD/INR and restrict long positions
3. Even, FIIs who were earlier to cancel and rebook forward contracts top the extent of 10% of their equity and debt holdings are not permitted to do so any more
Impact: To restrict trading by FIIs in FX
4. The Net Outstanding Position (NOP) of banks has been reduced.
Each Bank would be notified their NOP limits separately. In addition, banks' intra-day NOP limits also has been restricted to their daily closing NOP limit.
Impact: Will bring down inter-bank trading considerably. Earlier banks would trade on an intra-day basis and would square off positions to meet the NOP limit for end of the day.
Net , USD/INR should open significantly lower, closer to the 53 mark as several long positions in USD/INR will get liquidated. And going into year-end, we would expect that USD/INR liquidity will be significantly lower and should trend down as the impact of these restrictions kick in. However, we think that this will not stop INR weakness as this is a structural problem and we continue to remain negative on INR going into 2012.
NW18: Table of likely Oct-Dec advance tax payments by companies
NewsWire18, Thursday, Dec 15
.
MUMBAI - Following is a compilation of advance corporate tax that is
likely to have been paid by companies for Oct-Dec. The Income Tax Act, 1961
stipulates that companies must pay at least 75% of the estimated tax
liability for the financial year by Dec 15. Companies pay about 30% of the
tax liability for the financial year in Oct-Dec.
.
Advance Tax (in bln rupees)
Nifty companies Oct-Dec Oct-Dec Jul-Sep Apr-Jun
2011 2010 2011 2011
=============== ======= ======= ======= =======
Axis Bank 6.62 5.40 -- --
GAIL 4.00 3.70 4.90 2.50
HDFC 4.80 4.10 4.60 2.55
HDFC Bank 9.00 7.50 8.00 4.00
Hero MotoCorp 1.80 1.20 -- --
Hindalco 2.00 2.00 1.50 0.80
Hindustan Unilever 3.00 2.20 2.00 1.00
ITC 9.10 7.90 -- --
Kotak Mahindra Bank 1.50 0.87 1.30 0.60
Larsen & Toubro 3.50 2.70 3.50 1.75
Mahindra & Mahindra 2.20 2.36 1.70 0.90
NTPC 8.30 5.96 7.21 3.60
Reliance Industries 10.00 11.90 20.00 9.00
State Bank of India 17.30 18.50 17.00 11.00
Tata Consultancy 5.50 2.30 5.70 2.40
Tata Motors 0.80 2.20 0.90 0.62
Tata Power 0.80 0.60 0.70 0.30
Tata Steel 11.00 10.00 6.20 2.60
.
.
Non-Nifty
==========
Alok Industries 0.32 0.35 0.30 --
Bank of Baroda 5.50 4.35 6.00 2.50
Central Bank of India 1.00 1.80 2.20 1.40
Century Textiles 0.03 0.24 -- --
Godrej Consumer 0.40 0.15 -- --
Grasim 1.00 1.35 0.85 0.40
Hindustan Zinc 4.00 3.25 4.25 --
HPCL nil 0.29 0.28 0.62
IndusInd Bank 1.20 1.10 -- --
LIC Housing 0.90 0.70 0.90 0.47
NMDC 10.50 9.50 10.50 --
Novartis 0.20 0.18 -- 0.10
Oil India 6.00 -- 3.40 1.65
Pfizer 0.30 0.25 -- 0.13
Pidilite 0.30 0.25 0.25 --
Power Finance Corp 2.10 2.76 2.70 1.65
Rural Electrification Corp 2.90 2.94 2.87 1.50
Tata Chemicals 0.70 0.58 0.60 0.27
UltraTech 2.10 1.65 1.20 0.37
YES Bank 1.60 1.20 -- 0.60
Zee Entertainment 0.40 0.30 0.50 0.35
.
.
Others
======
Accenture 1.00 0.20 -- --
Kotak Securities 0.10 0.30 -- --
LIC 12.00 10.50 -- --
Morgan Stanley 0.20 0.35 -- --
NABARD 2.20 1.60 -- --
Star India 0.15 0.10 -- --
.
.
Note: Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, year ago, advance tax numbers are as detailed in
previous quarters.
.
End.
Dear All,
Gold To Fall Near Term. Due to liquidity crunch, investors may sell gold for cash.
Base metal prices will trend lower for the rest of the year unless policymakers make progress on tackling the euro-zone debt crisis
Indian shares may open down Tuesday on concerns over slowing corporate sales and profitability after industrial output in October contracted for the first time in 28 months. The rupee touched an all time of 52.84/$ signalling towards a decline in overseas investments.
Shares may also open down after Fitch Ratings joined Moody's Investors Service reiterating risks of negative rating action in Europe in coming months overshadowing the fiscal agreement reached by region's leaders last week.
Euro fell to over two-week low in early morning European trades after Moody's Investors service reiterated its plan to review the ratings of European nations.The unified currency also slipped as weak German WPI data for the month of November and higher yields set at Italian bond auction heightened fears of contagion spreading to stronger euro-zone nations.
Q+A - Why hasn't the euro zone crisis hammered the euro?
By Naomi Tajitsu
LONDON (Reuters) - The euro has held up relatively well on the foreign exchanges despite a two-year-old sovereign debt crisis that has seen euro-denominated bond yields rising to record levels and talk the currency bloc may not even survive.
The euro has weakened in recent weeks as euro zone debt yields have soared with a solution to the crisis elusive, though investors have held off from selling the currency aggressively compared with other assets.
While the single currency has retreated from $1.42 to hit a one-month low of $1.3421 this week, it is up nearly 2 percent so far this year, and its recent pull-back has lagged declines in bonds issued by weaker euro zone countries and in European shares.
Below is a list of questions and answers on why the euro has avoided a bigger sell-off.
WHAT IS PREVENTING A FURTHER FALL IN THE EURO?
The deepening euro zone sovereign debt crisis has yet to trigger an exodus from the shared currency as portfolio flows from debt issued by highly indebted states have gone into German Bunds, resulting in no foreign exchange outflow.
Some analysts also argue the euro's fall has been relatively subdued due to speculation the Federal Reserve may embark on more quantitative easing before the end of the year. That would probably weaken the dollar across the board.
Fed President Ben Bernanke has raised the prospect of buying more assets from the market to boost the U.S. economy.
"A lot of people still don't believe the U.S. is not going perform more quantitative easing by the end of the year," said Adam Myers, currency strategist at Credit Agricole CIB.
"At the moment, that's far more important than what's going on in the euro zone, from the currency perspective."
WHAT DOES POSITIONING IN THE EURO SUGGEST?
The latest IMM data shows speculators continue to bet on more euro weakness. These bets, called short positions, hover around their highest since mid-2010, when investors were first fretting about the possibility of a Greek default.
As the outlook for the euro zone debt crisis has darkened since August investors have shifted into bets for euro weakness, reversing positions favouring a rise earlier this year.
As these bets to sell have piled up, some investors have been trimming back on concerns that too many people are taking on similar positions.
A market full of one-way bets may trigger a sharp jump in the euro if investors seek to lock in profits on the currency's losses.
"Asset managers have been selling for the 14 of the past 15 weeks. That tells you how short people are," said Geoffrey Yu, currency strategist at UBS, quoting the bank's flows figures.
"That's why the euro is not weaker ... Right now it's difficult to push it lower given heavy downside positioning."
WHO IS BUYING THE EURO?
UBS client flows show that while asset managers and corporates sold the euro versus the Swiss franc and sterling last week, hedge funds picked up the single currency.
Custodial flows from Bank of New York Mellon indicate demand from big institutional investors including pension funds, have been buying the euro since late October.
Others in the market say European banks, facing tighter lending standards from their global counterparts, have also been buying the single currency as they cut their net foreign asset position to reduce balance sheet risk.
"If you have to cut your balance sheet, the most likely asset you will cut is the asset which has not been funded in the same currency as where the asset had been held," said Hans Redeker, head of currency strategy at Morgan Stanley.
A 2.5 percent rise in the euro versus eastern European currencies, including the Czech crown and the Polish zloty since late October is one result of this, analysts say.
WHAT DOES THE OPTIONS MARKET SUGGEST?
The options market suggests investors are actively protecting themselves against further volatility and weakness in the euro even though it has been resilient on the spot market.
One-month euro/dollar risk reversals , which measure the balance of demand between puts and calls -- options to sell or buy a currency -- hover near 4.0 vols in favour of euro puts, after soaring to a record high of 4.2 last week.
This shows a high premium on the right to sell the euro over one month, while the tilt in favour of puts over three months or longer have been at all-time highs for weeks.
This has resulted in a tightening positive correlation between one-month risk reversals and widening yield spreads between Italian and German bonds, suggesting a further expansion in spreads may boost the premium on euro puts even more.
WHAT COULD TRIGGER A SELL-OFF IN THE EURO?
Analysts believe crunch time for the euro would come if investors pulled out of German debt, which would be a sign of a real possibility of the euro zone breaking up or of a separation between the bloc's stronger and weaker countries.
This would result in a massive euro sell-off as investors fled the safest euro zone assets for the alternative liquidity of U.S. Treasuries and gold.
"There's a growing feeling that having your money in Germany is not a guaranteed safety," said Myers at Credit Agricole.
At the moment, 10-year U.S. Treasury yields are slightly higher than Germany's, but analysts say an inversion in their spread prompted by rising German yields and falling U.S. ones would be a sign of safe-haven flows into the United States.
Myers expects Treasuries to outperform Bunds in the coming weeks, adding this could knock the euro below $1.30 before the end of March.
(Editing and graphic by Nigel Stephenson)
